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Genia touch and go for Tens

A Jordan Uelese kick has put Will Genia in doubt for the Brisbane Tens, the Rebels star struggling to overcome a back injury.

Genia has travelled to Brisbane with his Melbourne teammates but after copping a kick to the back at training, medical staff are weighing up whether it is worth risking their star halfback with Super Rugby just over a fortnight away.

"We'll see - I hurt my back in quite a serious way so we will see," Genia said when asked whether he would feature on Friday.

"Hopefully it pulls up alright and I can have a run around either tomorrow or Saturday but we will just have to wait and see.

"It's not overly serious but it's about what's important in terms of the Tens, the trial game or round one."Should he suit up Genia will square off with his beloved Reds in the Rebels' second match of the tournament, an experience he admits would be weird having spent the first decade long of his career at Ballymore.

"For nine or ten seasons I was playing for Queensland but I guess going to Stade Francais going for a couple of years made it easier as I pretty much did that when I left," Genia said.

"Coming back, I wanted to come back to Queensland but things didn't work out.

"That makes it a little bit easier to put this shirt on knowing that."

On a team front, Genia couldn't have been more complimentary of the work Dave Wessels has done with the squad in a limited time frame.

"He's a lot like Cheik - he's very, very similar in that he brings a lot of intensity to training sessions and how we go about our business but he also takes the time to get to know players individually and understands the stronger the relationships between players as people, first and foremost," Genia said."If you can develop that you can translate that to in game - putting your body on the line for your mate when the going gets tough.

"While we have invested a lot of time into training hard, making sure we are fit and strong and fast and all that sort of stuff, we have also spent just as much time on that side of things, which is really important."

Wessels has put his faith in Adam Coleman to lead the club in an intriguing year and that was a tremendous call, according to Genia.

"The one thing that I really enjoy about Adsie is that he wants to win so much," he said.

"He's willing to invest time into his training effort, into his teammates, into building a good environment at the club and I think it has really suited him well."

There's no danger of Coleman losing his trademark aggression on field, either.

"You wouldn't ever give him the captaincy if you thought that's what it would do and it definitely hasn't," Genia said.

"He still has blow ups at training with Jordy for not throwing straight and that's what you want from him - that's his point of difference - to be real physical in games and naturally we follow him anyway because he does that."

The Brisbane Tens kick off at Suncorp Stadium on Friday, February 9. Buy tickets here.